LNP needs big swing to win Qld electon

Campbell Newman
needs to win 14 seats to take power in his own right but the loss of just seven would rob Premier
Anna Bligh
of her majority. That is the bald maths of the electoral pendulum for the Liberal National Party as it seeks to wrest power from Labor at the March election.

For Bligh, Whitsunday represents that key seventh seat. To take the seat from Labor, Newman’s Liberal National Party needs a uniform swing of just 3.2 per cent. Seven sitting independents make the task of winning power outright slightly more difficult.

The LNP needs to carry off a uniform swing of 4.6 per cent, sweeping 14 seats, to gain a majority in the 89 seat parliament. In that scenario the last seat Newman needs is Brisbane’s Kallangur. Labor has never lost the seat, but it faces a stiff challenge from Trevor “Big Trev" Ruthenberg. It seems fitting because most watchers say it is in the state’s capital that the contest will be resolved.

“They have got to win every seat they can in Brisbane if they want to win," ABC election analyst Antony Green says of the LNP’s task ahead.

In nominating the crucial battlegrounds, Green rings the cluster of seats in Brisbane’s north starting at Ashgrove then stretching out through Ferny Grove and Everton and on to the city fringe in Pine Rivers and Kallangur. On the other side of town, there are vital seats along the Pacific Highway, Chatsworth, Mansfield and Springwood.

“They are going to want to win the Springwood and Mansfield type of seat . . . all those seats in the 4 per cent to 5 per cent range. They are all ­suburban Brisbane, not necessarily mortgage belt," Green says.

The Bligh government suffered a swing of about 4.3 per cent at the last election, which removed much of its electoral “fat", Green says.

Outside Brisbane, attention will focus on the very far north, where several seats around Cairns and up to Cape York sit on low margins as well as Toowoomba North (3.2 per cent) and Townsville (4 per cent). There are also a trio of electorates with thin margins around the Gold Coast, which will be closely watched.

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Swings are never uniform, which may explain why Newman himself is targeting Labor’s Kate Jones in Ashgrove, where he will need to grab a swing of just over 7 per cent just to get his own seat in parliament.

Green says Queensland’s optional preferential voting system could put some safer Labor seats at risk. Under the system voters need only indicate their first preference, meaning Green preferences may not flow to Labor.